Being a mediocre player gets you nowhere in POE

I am curious what kind of depth are you expecting an action RPG to have then? Ok, so whatever PoE has is not depth then, but what is depth in this genre of games?

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Your obviously a very young person, so you don´t know that much about the gaming industry and life in general, but you need to understand one thing. Video games don´t survive if a few thousand nerds play them, this was the case in the 90s when you could make games for a few thousand bucks. NO, today video games are million dollar deal and you can only get the money back if you get casuals in.
Here GGG failed and this is why they struck a deal with an investor.

Don't make assumptions about me. You don't even know what I am arguing against. The guy, and others beside him, bring up numbers straight up. They say only 6% of the players reach maps. Is it not right to assume that a big number of those 94% tried the game for a couple of hours, didn't like it and left it behind but they are still being included in this statistic? Would it be wrong to assume that if the game was pay to play the % of people who reach maps would be a lot higher because the buyers would know what they purchase and would know they'd spend more time on it than a couple of hours? I want you to refute this one. If you can that is.

Besides, the whole point was discussing someone who claims he is MEDIOCRE. We are not talking about bronze players in league or something similar, we are talking about a self proclaimed average player who claims he cant play even though he has been proven wrong on that account.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

I am curious what kind of depth are you expecting an action RPG to have then? Ok, so whatever PoE has is not depth then, but what is depth in this genre of games?

Ok, i'll tell you. In all other ARPGs, killing bosses is the most encouraged "job". In PoE, oneshotting trash mobs is encouraged, and bosses are often skipped (not worth farming), if you dont kill them in few seconds. For me, oneshotting trash, that doesnt even have any chances to fight back, isnt really interesting (because if they do, you can die quickly, and it means your build is just bad). If trash can fight back, and has interesting skills, that should be avoided/played around in combat (like early D3 rares/champions had) - then it's OK. But in PoE, even rares are meant to be killed in 1 second or less. At this point, you can replace all those "different" trash mobs with XP/loot globes with identical model and no skills, and it wont change much. Oh, and the only kind of build that is successful in PoE, is AoE-spreading glass cannon. There is no place for tanks, snipers, assassins...
That's what i call "lack of depth"...

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krizzexile wrote:

... in the time you farm x currency for item y, the inflation already made item y two times x and so on.

I am a casual and that is why I play standard. In the leagues you are competing with ppl that take time off work to grind at the beginning, most of them are good too. There is no way for you to compete against someone who spends 5-10 times your playtime and goes fast too.

p.s. Your arc totem guy would be much better with 2 x Kikazaru rings and a Self-Flagellation jewel.

I am somewhat above casual in terms of playtime/ability to build things, largely due to reading guides and understanding mechanics while being a physically disabled person leaving me time to play. The largest QoL you can do on arc totems is never stop moving. I got my first shaper kill this league (not my actual first kill, first ever was in beastiary) after ripping 3 sets to his mechanics because I stopped moving. If you want to survive maps, do the totem train technique where you plan a totem in front of you, move to it, then plant another etc.

The most sad thing is that POE mechanics actively discourage players from experimenting.

Lets take a typical RPG. You want to experiment with a boss fight to see what setups are effective, what strategies can be used, etc. You can just keep retrying, either with no or little penalty for failing. Some RPGs even have a "practice mode" where you get no xp/loot but there is no penalty and you can keep retrying as often as you want, so that you can experiment all you want.

In POE? You get hit with a massive death penalty. There are huge costs to respec. Want to test something like Taste of Hate on a particular boss? Prepare to drop 1ex or more. Limited portals and maps costing money are another barrier for experimentation. Only the top 1% have enough currency that they dont care if they use up all portals for a t16, chiseled, sextant and corrupted map when testing a new setup.

So instead of experimenting, most players stick with tried and proven strategies and the most meta setups they can find. And thats part of the reason why 99% of builds for a particular class/skill combo look exactly the same when you go to poe.ninja.

You will notice that whenever people mention the popular streamers, they are only mentioned using OP setups...no surprise why, it wont look very good if they experiment and die over and over again...why experiment with burning arrow when you can use vaal double strike or arc right?

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Johny_Snow wrote:

I am curious what kind of depth are you expecting an action RPG to have then? Ok, so whatever PoE has is not depth then, but what is depth in this genre of games?

"

Your obviously a very young person, so you don´t know that much about the gaming industry and life in general, but you need to understand one thing. Video games don´t survive if a few thousand nerds play them, this was the case in the 90s when you could make games for a few thousand bucks. NO, today video games are million dollar deal and you can only get the money back if you get casuals in.
Here GGG failed and this is why they struck a deal with an investor.

Don't make assumptions about me. You don't even know what I am arguing against. The guy, and others beside him, bring up numbers straight up. They say only 6% of the players reach maps. Is it not right to assume that a big number of those 94% tried the game for a couple of hours, didn't like it and left it behind but they are still being included in this statistic? Would it be wrong to assume that if the game was pay to play the % of people who reach maps would be a lot higher because the buyers would know what they purchase and would know they'd spend more time on it than a couple of hours? I want you to refute this one. If you can that is.

Besides, the whole point was discussing someone who claims he is MEDIOCRE. We are not talking about bronze players in league or something similar, we are talking about a self proclaimed average player who claims he cant play even though he has been proven wrong on that account.

The OP is actually very self-aware in taking ownership of his mediocrity. What Charan and I were more on about were people above mediocre but not actually part of the elite (mostly). Which is typically where people fall when they say things like shaper is a build tester, or that most people can run t16 maps.

Bronze players are "mediocre", and that was the whole point of bringing them up for example. Even after years of experience a huge portion of LoL's populace falls under Bronze with the rest of the bulk in Silver (also mediocre as silver is considered the average competency level). Gold and beyond are drastically less in number. Getting into the highest tiers, master last time I check only consisted of 200 players or so and challenger are the highest 50 rated in the world. Given that game's longevity, its a fairly accurate model of the "pyramid" Charan mentioned earlier.

But as other people have pointed out, those of us who have been gaming long enough are able to see a much bigger and broader picture.

I remember when LoL and Riot were relatively new and unlike others were one of the few companies willing to offer full access and the ability to earn everything short of cosmetics through gameplay alone. Poe may not offer currency exchanges for extra space, but aside from that you basically only invest into cosmetics. I'm not a fan of how their cosmetics work, I prefer a one time purchase for account-wide unlocks myself, especially when alting is part of the norm.



And Question pretty much hits it on the head - experimenting in PoE is discouraged. Now while I would expect experimentation to carry its own penalties, the reality is that for the majority its too cost prohibitive to avoid running meta. For example, I could have finished my atlas during Beastiary, but given the drop rates I felt it was too expensive to trade for maps. Instead I took some of that wealth I built up into standard so I had at least a reasonable amount of currency to enjoy standard.

But going back to whatever the hell you think you're arguing - ignore the "literal" numbers and grasp the concept that people will be better and worse than you are. The better you are, the fewer people will be at that level.

OP, another person in the mediocre pool here.

I've played since beta and I've never made it to any "endgame bosses" or even progressed past T6? maps. I think my highest level character is level 85?

When I die, it's typically to things that kill me faster than I can possibly react.

I'm almost 40, and my reaction time isn't what it is used to be, and that's okay. It's just a game, don't let it get you frustrated.

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why experiment with burning arrow when you can use vaal double strike or arc right?

I am experimenting with BA in Hardcore and it's a fun build. I'm a new player (started with Bestiary) and I haven't fought Elder/Shaper or any of the T16 Guardians yet (I always RIP before I get there). I'm eager to get there and I enjoy chasing the carrot. PoE isn't a competition so who exactly is forcing you to play meta builds if you don't enjoy them? From my observation player damage is so idiotically overtuned that even my terrible, low-budget meme builds clear red maps just fine. You don't need double corruptions or meta skills or 6-links to see the end-game, especially in babycore.

As for OP's complaints, not every developer is obligated to bend over and have their product bastardized by casuals. I like PoE because it forces you to learn how to play it well. I RIP-ed in Incursion league to popping a Herald of Obelisks pack in a multiple projectiles map and lost my lvl 91 character in half a second. My first thought was "well shit, another hard learned lesson". That's 4 days of farming and decent gear instantly deleted by a player mistake. I won't say I had fun dying there, but I appreciate that there are still games being made that punish people for being bad at them. Punishments give you an incentive to improve; if you could throw corpses at the game until you got to Uber Elder there'd literally be no point to the game. Plus the "punishment" PoE hands you out for dying is a slap on the wrist, at least in babycore. You lose, what - 10% XP? - when you die. Get fucking real please.

Careful there, you're going to trigger the resident casual apologists who don't even play the game but have Very Strong Opinions about how the game should be balanced :)

There's definite design bloat, but I think that's simply a side-effect of how PoE was developed in bits and pieces.

The game design isn't helped by the clusterfuck patchwork plot. The world-building was always there, but I can't really come to terms with the idea that GGG had any idea where the main plot was supposed to go beyond killing Dominus (or hell, beyond Piety).